Words From A Simple Woman’s Daybook…

For Today…

It’s Monday, August 8, 2016 ( I can’t believe this year is almost 3/4 gone!)

Looking out my window…

I see multiple hanging baskets of blooming plants, and the windmill my children gave me for Mother’s Day. (It’s one of my favorite gifts I’ve ever received.)  I’ve enjoyed watching the flowers blooming, all summer, as well as the windmill turning whenever the wind blows. The wind is blowing, and the wheel is turning, as I write.

I am thinking…

How quickly things can change!  The last time all of our children and their families were in the same place together was on Mother’s Day.  At one time, we gathered on a weekly basis, but that was then, this is now.  I’m afraid our family is broken, and I don’t know how to fix it.

Also thinking how four months ago, I was pretty sure Ed and I had found the church home we’ve been without for the past five years.  Now, due to some unfortunate circumstances, we’re without a church home, again.  Things can change quickly, and not always for the best.

I am thankful…

We were able to go to the assisted living home (where Ed’s mom once resided) and share their worship service, yesterday.  Although it was a bit depressing, to me, it was also a blessing.  It’s depressing to see what lies ahead of us all, if we live long enough.  Sometimes, the aging process is unkind. However, it was a real blessing to witness our son ministering to these folks.  He has a love for them that is quite evident in his interaction with them.  He delivers a message to them every Sunday at one o’clock, holidays included.

One of my favorite things…

Is getting together with our old friends, Herman and Diane.  We’ve been friends since we were all in high school, almost 50 years ago.  We don’t live in the same town, anymore, but we still visit each other.  We had a nice visit together, on Saturday.

I am wearing…

My nightgown.  I haven’t gotten dressed, yet.

I am creating…

Nothing special.  I’m still painting a garden statue that I’ve been working on for a while.  My eyes have begun to bother me when I paint, so it’s taking me a while to finish.  At this rate, I’ll finish it just in time for winter!

I am reading…

An encouraging devotional book entitled This Too Shall Pass.  I’m almost finished reading Sunday Morning Memories, by former Statler Brother, Don Reid.  Next on my reading list is The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom.

I am listening…

To lots of gospel music on The Gaither Music Channel. I discovered this channel, on Dish Network, back in the spring, and have really enjoyed watching the old “Homecoming” concert series.

I am watching…

Ed and I watched the movie Thirteen Hours (story of Bengazi), on Saturday night.  That was one intense movie!  Sometimes I lose interest or get sleepy while watching a movie, but I didn’t this time!  I still find it reprehensible that assistance was withheld from those folks!  It’s a wonder ALL were not killed.

I am hoping…

To have a good week!  Ed has an appointment with his cardiologist, on Friday.  I have an appointment with my dentist on the same day.  I hope we both get good reports.

I am learning…

How to be more patient.  I used to be a very impatient person, but that’s gradually changing as I’m growing older.  It’s good to learn patience, since it takes me twice as long to get things accomplished, now!

In my kitchen…

I didn’t cook the entire weekend!  On Friday night, Brad and Jennifer brought pulled pork for supper, and ate with us.  On Saturday night, we bought pizza because Herman and Diane were visiting, then, on Sunday night, we ate Thursday night’s left-overs of homemade chicken pot pie.

In the school room…

Two of our grandchildren will be starting home-school in a few short days.  It’s hard to believe one will be in fourth grade, and the other will be in second grade.  Our public school has already begun.  Their first day of school was last Friday.  It’s too hot to be riding buses with no air conditioning!

In my garden…

Ed has a partial row of sweet potatoes growing, as well as three rows of peas.  My partial row of zinnias are still blooming.  I cut a small bouquet, last week.  Soon it will be time to start some fall seedlings for lettuce and cabbage plants.

From my photo files…

a rare photo of all four of our grandchildren

Shared Quote…
“Something good is going to happen to/through me today!”  Joyce Meyer

A moment from my day…

Recently, I looked out of the kitchen window and observed this:

Ed…watching for the pesky ground mole that recently messed up our grass

Closing Notes:
My time in blog land has been limited, lately.  I’ve been spending some leisurely days doing nothing, now that the garden season is over.  Sometimes, it feels good to do nothing–including blogging.  Hopefully, I’ll become more energetic with the arrival of cooler weather–whenever that will be!

Many thanks to Peggy Hostetler for hosting The Simple Woman’s Daybook.

______________________________

Life These Days…

Lately, my life feels like a bit of a roller coaster ride.  There have been a few steep climbs, followed by several drops.    The months of May and June have not turned out quite like I’d envisioned.  I’m tired, I’m weary and worn, and it’s not just from working in the garden!  I’m weary and worn just from dealing with life, these days.

Lately, Ed and I seem to be surrounded by stress and strife.  I don’t know if God is testing us or if Satan is tempting us, but, lately, strife has been all around us!  This isn’t the kind of  stress and strife we had last year, when Ed lost his job, or we discovered we had termites and mold in our house.  This is the kind of stress and strife where certain family members are mad with certain other family members.  When things get done and said, and a molehill morphs into a mountain.  My head aches just thinking about it all.  Can’t we all just get along?  Apparently not.

The other day, I read a church sign that said, “Self control begins with tongue control.”  Believe me, truer words have never been spoken!  It’s so easy for the wrong words to flow out of our mouths, sometimes,  but it’s SO hard to put those words behind us once they’ve been spoken.  I almost wish people had safety valves on their minds/mouths, that wouldn’t let them take any action or let any words escape until the level of emotion decreases a notch or two, but, alas, that is not the case.  Sigh.  And so we deal with the aftermath and we give it time.

In spite of the stress and strife surrounding us, at the moment, Ed and I managed to have an enjoyable day on our anniversary.  The weather wasn’t suitable (cloudy/rain) for going to the beach, so we postponed our trip to St. Simon’s Island until another day.  However, we did take our usual anniversary trip to Kentucky Fried Chicken to celebrate our 44th.  It was early evening when we got there, so we actually had the entire restaurant to ourselves!  It was quite nice.

While we ate our anniversary meal, we sat and reminisced about some of our past anniversaries.  We’ve had some good ones, so we have lots of good memories.  Like the time Ed’s parents kept our small children just long enough for us to celebrate our anniversary with a quiet steak dinner at home. (It’s the little things, like silence, that mean the most, sometimes!)  Then there was the time our children were finally old enough to stay home alone, so we left them home for the evening, and spent the night in a nearby motel that had a Jacuzzi in it.  On one anniversary we took our daughter, our daughter-in-law, and our two young grandchildren with us to stay in a beachfront condo. (I guess you could say the honeymoon was definitely over at that point. Ha!)  Last, but not least, there was the time we traveled thirty miles or more, off of Amelia Island, just to find a KFC,  then got back to the beach with our picnic supper, only to discover we didn’t have any eating utensils! You can’t eat mashed potatoes and coleslaw without utensils!  Fun times.

The last time I blogged, there were three men on top of our house, taking off old tin, and replacing it with new tin.  They finished the job in only six hours!  Now we have a noisy roof, since the tin tends to ‘pop’ during the hottest part of the day.  The roofer says, “it’s just the tin settling in.”  All I know is we’ve never had any creaks before, unless Ed was up there walking on the roof!  The roofer came back and added a few more screw to the tin, but we still have creaks during the middle of the day.  I hope the tin “settles in” soon.

Father’s Day, 2016, came and went.  It was extra-special [to me] because Ed was still here for us to celebrate with.  I got up in the wee hours of Sunday morning and put a Boston Butt in the crock pot for lunch.  I baked a cake, and attempted to bake some cookies.  We went to church.  Two of our three children, and families, joined us for lunch, while the third stopped by later in the afternoon.  Ed received several nice gifts, and enjoyed all of the attention.  It was a busy day, shortened by the fact that several of our “grands” had to attend a VBS closing program that evening.  Ed and I went to bed early, bone weary tired.

Now the first week of summer is here, and we’ve been spending a lot of it in our garden.  Most mornings are spent picking/shelling peas, while our afternoons are spent canning tomatoes or corn that we also pick each morning.

I need to go to the beach so bad!  (I really need some time in my chair, enjoying the relaxing view) However, my body just isn’t able to make the trip, even if there was time to go.  Actually, we’d planned to go to St. Simon’s Island, today. However,  I’m practically running on fumes, and just didn’t feel like I could make the trip, then come home and deal with more vegetables tomorrow.  I keep telling myself– the beach will always be there, the garden will not (thank goodness).  For now, I’ll comfort myself with that thought–as I hobble back to the kitchen to ‘can’ a few more tomatoes.

 

‘

 

 

 

 

 

May Days…

With the exception of December, the month of May is the busiest month of the year for our family.  Therefore, not much time for blogging!

Most early mornings, you’ll find Ed and me out in the garden.  There are vegetables waiting to be gathered, and weeds waiting to be pulled or hoed.  It’s powder dry here, too, so lots of time is spent moving the water hose/sprinkler from place to place, as well.  I think of lots of things to blog about, while working, but have no time to write the posts.

This year, our lives are very different than last year, at this time.  Last year, I was afflicted with sciatica, in May, and wasn’t even able to walk out to the garden, much less work in it!  I was pretty much house bound most of the summer.  Going through a year, like that makes me really appreciate this one.  Praise the Lord for normal days!

Speaking of normal days, whenever we travel, Ed, loves to look for “treasures” on the side of the highway.  He’s always stopping to pick up “bungee straps”, buckets, etc.  A couple of years ago we stopped and picked up a child-sized lunchroom chair that had been tossed on the side of the road.  We had no idea what we’d do with the chair, but we brought it home and stored it. This year, that little chair has turned out to be my saving grace while picking garden peas! It’s just the right height, and my back doesn’t hurt when I sit in it, unlike the gardening stool.  You know what they say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

Ed and I spent a large portion of last week working on a landscaping project.  After the children gave me a windmill for Mother’s Day, I felt the need to incorporate it in a landscaping project.  Since we have chickens who free range in our yard, several hours a day, I’m limited as to what I can have.  I opted for several hanging baskets, instead of making a flower bed.  Lucky for me, I got into a “after Mother’s Day sale” on hanging baskets. I love a one-half off sale!  I was well pleased with my bargain plants and the end result of our project, as well.

Speaking of that “after Mother’s Day sale”, Ed and I made very good use of our Transit Connect van during that shopping trip!  We had the entire back end of the van filled with plants of all kinds, a couple of very tall shepherd’s hooks, three large bags of charcoal, also on sale, plus a few groceries, too.  Days like those are why we need a van!

Our oldest son, Brett, celebrated his 34th birthday on Tuesday, May 10.  Late on the evening of his birthday, after he got home from work, our daughter, our granddaughter, Ed, and I walked down to his house and knocked on the door.  When he opened it, we started singing “Happy Birthday” to him, like a bunch of carolers.  I’m not sure how much he enjoyed our singing, but we sure had fun doing it 🙂

the birthday boy with his little boys

This past weekend turned out to be a very busy time for the family. On Saturday,  there was a Sweet Onion Parade and festival, which some attended.  Then, on Saturday evening, our daughter-in-law hosted a belated birthday party for our oldest son.  There was also a Sweet Onion Gospel Sing, on Saturday evening, which our granddaughter participated in.  She sings with her church’s youth choir, known as “Tomorrow’s Voices”, and this was the first gospel sing she’d participated in.  Her mama said she did a good job.

Madison showing off the back of her choir t-shirt

On Sunday, things didn’t slow down much, either, since our oldest son was in charge of delivering both Sunday messages, in the absence of his church’s pastor. This mama says he did a good job, too!

Now that it’s Monday, I’ve been dividing my time between the garden and cleaning house–with a little blogging sandwiched in between.  It’s taken me all day to get this post written, but I’ve also picked and shelled a bowl of garden peas, in addition to picking a bunch of squash. I’ve mopped the kitchen and vacuumed the living room, and in a few minutes I’ll cook us something to eat, then off we’ll go to watch our little grandson, Chase’s end of the year pre-school program.  Life is busy, but it sure is good…except for one little glitch. When I tried to upload a couple of pictures to this post, blogger wouldn’t let me. I don’t have any idea why, and I’ve tried everything I know to do. So, until I figure things out, you’ll just have to use your imagination! Until next time…

PS I finally got lucky, and was able to get the pictures to upload 🙂

 

 

 

 

A Few Friday Fragments…

I’ve already mentioned, in a previous post, the two pet losses we suffered, last week, and the sick, ‘egg bound’ chicken we dealt with, but I didn’t mention the other sick cat we’re dealing with, now.  His name is “Drake” (another shelter rescue), but I’m not sure how old he is.  I know he’s older than eleven, because he was fully grown when I brought him home in 2004. I suppose caring for aged cats will become a way of life, for a while, since most of our cats are now over the age of ten.  We still have eleven cats left–but, eleven years ago, there were twenty-two of them!

When it rains it pours, and that’s exactly what it did at our house, on Easter Sunday, therefore, we couldn’t have our usual egg hunt.  The grandchildren were really disappointed, but I’ve already mentioned that in an earlier post, too.  However, the grandchildren were able to gather at our house, on Saturday afternoon, to dye some eggs.

Unfortunately, all four ‘grands’ had already been to church egg hunts, earlier in the day, and weren’t really  interested in dying eggs.  They were more interested in playing with each other outside!  They colored three or four eggs each, then off they went.  Evan, our youngest grandchild, (who is 2 1/2) wasn’t interested in coloring eggs at all, but he was interested in holding the finished products!

Due to the rain, we didn’t get to make our usual outside Easter family picture, this year.  In fact, Ed and I didn’t have our pictures taken at all.  We were too busy doing kitchen duty to worry about such things. Everybody else had their picture taken, at some point during the day.

  four-year-old Chase taking his mom and older brother’s picture

Although we didn’t have our egg hunt and we didn’t get our picture taken, at least nobody ended up with a broken arm, like last year.

Ed and I had overnight guests, on the Monday after Easter. My brother and his wife stopped by on their way back to Florida.  As always, we enjoyed their visit, even though it was a short one.  We had Easter left-overs for supper.

On Wednesday, I had to make a trip into the city to visit the gynecologist for my yearly checkup.  I spent two and one-half hours in the doctor’s office–then had two pelvic exams, by two different people! (Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!)  When I gave permission for a medical student to “shadow” my doctor during my exam, I didn’t realize the doctor was going to ask my permission for the student to repeat the pelvic exam, too!  Talk about an awkward moment–it was.

Speaking of awkward moments, yesterday, I was trying to help Ed rake some pine straw, for the flower beds, when I looked down and discovered something that looked an awful lot like poison ivy touching my lower leg!  I quickly put down the rake, and went inside to find my bottle of Technu.  I scrubbed my leg with Technu twice!  I washed my leg so much, I scrubbed off my self-tanner!   I’m hoping (and praying) I don’t break out, because I’m terribly allergic to poison ivy.

“the salad table”

I think I’ve finally discovered “my kind of gardening”.  It requires no bending! Ed bought a cute little gardening table for me at the end of last summer.  I recently filled it with all kinds of seeds and plants, so I jokingly refer to it as “the salad table”.  You’ll find lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and radishes growing in “the salad table”.  It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

left to right – onions, potatoes, garden peas

Our regular garden is coming along, slowly.  The green beans, squash, cucumbers, carrots, and okra are all coming up. The tomato, cabbage, and lettuce plants we planted are doing okay, but they don’t seem to be as healthy as in other years. Several plants have died, for some reason, and I hate that. Meanwhile, the Irish potatoes, garden peas, and onions seem to be doing fine.

It’s supposed to be a rainy weekend here, so I guess it will be a restful weekend for us. They are predicting some stormy weather for Saturday, including possible hail, so I’m concerned about the garden.

Today is April Fool’s Day, and is also my late father-in-law’s birthday.  He always liked to joke around and say he was “an April fool”.  He was no fool, but he was a WWII veteran, and a good man who would help anybody in any way he could.  He loved his wife and family dearly. He was also a very good cook who made the best fried chicken I’ve ever tasted. He could take one fryer and feed a dozen people!

Happy Birthday, in heaven, “Grandpa”.

 

 

 

A “Spring Fever” Kind Of Weekend…

We had one of those rare February weekends that could make me think spring is just around the corner…if I didn’t know better.  The days were sunny and the temperatures were mild.  I’m not sure what Sunday’s high was, but I know it was somewhere in the mid to upper 70’s.  Just about perfect!

On Friday, Ed and I began our day by going to get new driver’s licenses because our address recently changed when we moved our mailbox.  After having our pictures taken for our new licenses, we were both kind of depressed.  Why are the pictures [on drivers licenses] always so awful? We both kept asking, do I really look that old?

After the license ordeal, Ed came home and decided to cut down a tree that needed to come down.  We’ve had two dead trees fall [near our yard] within the last month.  Fortunately, the damage has been minimal. This particular tree, Ed cut down, was still living, but was too close to our carport, so it needed to go.  I’d like to say the tree came down without incident, but the edge of it caught the edge of the roof of our storage house. Ed now has a couple of ‘dents’ to repair.

We got a pleasant surprise, on Friday night, when our youngest son and his family came over and brought supper for all of us.  What a great way to kick off the weekend!  However, I guess Ed’s and my company must have gotten a little boring toward the end of the evening, because Jennifer, Evan, and Brad went to sleep [while watching television] a little before 10!  Somewhere around 11, Ed and I turned off the television and just left them sleeping in the living room. Unfortunately, they were gone, by the time we woke up, on Saturday morning.

I still owed Ed a German Chocolate cake for his Valentine’s Day gift, so I began my Saturday in the kitchen, baking.  While I baked the cake, Ed hauled off a truckload of “junk” that had been accumulating around our house over the past few months.  Things like an old yard swing, an old dishwasher, an old gas grill, etc. Ed wasn’t very happy when I asked him to haul off some of his ‘treasures’, but he did it anyway–with the promise of a piece of German Chocolate cake, after he did.

Saturday afternoon was so pretty, we spent most of it outside.  There’s not much Ed enjoys more than starting a fire and burning something, and that’s just what he did!  Two years ago, we had forty-three pine trees cut down from around our house.  We’re still trying to burn the last of them, so Ed worked on that for most of the afternoon.  He burned a lot of trash, but he sure made a lot of smoke.

Ed officially began our 2016 gardening season a few days ago, on February 12.  He made one row in the garden, and planted 50 onion ‘sets’ on it.  Onions are always one of the first things we plant, and, since then, I’ve been dying to plant something else, so… Ed and I made time to plant the seeds for our tomato, pepper, lettuce, and cabbage plants, this weekend, too. We planted them in styrofoam cups where they will sprout and continue to live until the danger of frost is over, in about six weeks.

Planting seeds in cups is much easier, this year, thanks to the neat new gardening table Ed bought on sale at the end of last summer.  (I sneaked a picture of him while he was putting it together.)  Using the table eliminated the need to bend over so much, while doing the planting.  Now, if we could just find some easy way to get those sprouted plants into the ground that’s not easy on our backs!

We’ll also plant some vegetables inside of the gardening table, once the weather is warm enough, but, for now, the table makes a great place to pot seeds or re-pot old plants.  I can’t wait to use it again!

All too soon, the weekend was over, and we decided to end our beautiful weekend by firing up our grill and our fire pit–both at the same time! While the sun went down behind the trees, on Sunday evening, we dined on grilled “turkey burgers” in lawn chairs beside the fire.  Our daughter and her family saw us sitting outside, and decided to come over and join us.  They brought some hot dogs and we all sat around the fire after we finished eating.  Of course, we had to end our first cookout of 2016, with a few s’mores, and they were delicious, if I must say so myself 🙂

I’m already looking forward to many more weekends just like this one! Yes, I guess you could say, I’ve already caught “spring fever”.  I say, “Bring it on!”  If I’m lucky, I won’t mess up my back, and can actually enjoy being outside, this year.

Happy Monday!

 

 

 

The Wednesday Hodgepodge…

Thank goodness, today’s Hodgepodge questions are short, and don’t require a lot of thought on my part.  Otherwise, I’m just not sure I could deal with it today.

Life continues to throw unexpected curve balls our way, and it’s just about to get the best of me.  The latest one?  Our previous insurance refuses to pay for mine and Ed’s March lab work because of the lab the doctor’s office sent it to. We’ve used the same doctor, for years, along with the same insurance, and, as far as I know, I’ve used this lab before and have never had an issue–until now. Total cost for both of our bills?  Over $900.  Ouch.

Anyway, thanks to Joyce for continuing to host The Hodgepodge, even in the midst of all that she has going on!  God bless you, Joyce 🙂

Here are today’s questions:

1. When is your next big deadline? What’s it for?

We don’t have a deadline for anything, but we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of Ed’s first Social Security check on the third week of next month.  It’s been a long time coming (and we’ll need it to help pay thosee ridiculous lab bills!)

2. May is National Barbecue Month. Do you prefer cooking indoors or out? What’s the best thing about a barbecue? What’s the last thing you cooked on an outdoor grill?

I prefer cooking outdoors, because Ed does all of the cooking on the grill!  (However, I can make some pretty good Crock Pot Barbecue indoors.)  The best thing about a barbecue is eating it with family or friends (besides the taste of the food, of course!)  The last food we cooked on our outdoor grill was hot dogs.

3. What is one thing on your “never again” list?

I can absolutely say, without a doubt, that I will never again ride a motorcycle. Besides, I couldn’t hike my leg over the seat, even if I wanted to!

4. What’s something that annoys you about people your own age? Something you love about your generation?

I can’t think of anything about people my age that annoys me, unless it’s the fact that we’re getting old!

I think the thing I love about my generation is the era we grew up in.  Times were much simpler back then!  People still treated each other with respect, the music and cars were great, and it was a lot easier to be prosperous than it is these days.

5. Lilac, iris, hyacinth, pansy…your favorite purple flower?

Iris.  I can’t grow them, but I love them.

6. What’s a song that always calms you down?

I can’t think of one particular song that calms me, but this CD always does the trick!  I bought it for our first grandchild, then quickly discovered how soothing the music was.

7. What’s the last thing you donated?

I donated some clothing and a few odds-n-ends to Goodwill, a couple of months ago.

Random:

Apparently, the love of gardening runs in the family.

Here are some pictures of our two oldest grandsons, along with their little vegetable garden!  (I borrowed them from their mom’s Facebook page)

 

 Absolutely adorable–our little boys and their garden!

‘Good Friday’ Fragments…

Here it is, the Friday before Easter again.  Didn’t we just celebrate Easter?  It certainly seems like it to me.  The days are passing so fast, they practically all run together, these days, but it certainly didn’t seem that way when I was a youngster! Ha!  Now I’m sounding old!

It’s been another busy week around our house.  We’ve done a little of everything–housework, gardening, painting, shopping–and all of this was done during a week when I haven’t even been feeling my best!  Imagine what I could have gotten done during a ‘good’ week!

Ed and I now have seven rows of our 2015  garden planted, but we still have about five more rows to plant.  You may recall that we plant each row by hand.  Ed pokes the holes with an old mop handle, and I go behind him dropping the seeds in the holes.  He then goes behind me and covers up the holes.  It’s quite a process, and each row is about 100 feet long!  I’m getting a ‘farmer’s tan’ 🙂

Our hens have gone crazy laying eggs!  Longer daylight hours, in addition to the warmer weather has ‘the girls’ workin’ overtime!  We’re averaging 7 to 9 eggs per day, out of 10 hens.  Three of those ten hens are over 3 years old, so we thought they’d be retired by now!  Only one of those three has retired.  She’s actually not retired, I think she may be sick with ovarian cancer, but that’s a story for another day.

Some of my readers have asked how long the eggs will keep.  The answer is “several weeks”, in the refrigerator, but if the eggs aren’t washed, and are simply rubbed with a coating of mineral oil, they supposedly will last up to a year, with NO refrigeration!  I’m afraid to try that trick though.

Other readers have asked what we do with all of these eggs. (There are several dozen in the refrigerator, at the moment.)  The answer is “We share some with our family and friends, and we EAT a lot of eggs!”  I’ve also read that you can crack eggs, scramble them up, and pour the raw egg mixture into ice trays to freeze the egg mixture for cooking.  I haven’t tried that trick either.  I’d be more likely to try this than the mineral oil trick though!

Speaking of eggs, are you ready for Easter yet?  I am not!  I usually bake a ham for Easter, but we’re having turkey this year.  Call me crazy!  The turkey is now in the refrigerator thawing.  That’s the extent of my Easter preparations, so far.

Today I’ll spend some time in the kitchen, preparing all of the ingredients for homemade stuffing–or dressing as we like to call it here in the south.  Fortunately, I will have some help with the rest of the meal.  My girls will be making some great desserts and side dishes to go along with the turkey and dressing.

On Saturday afternoon, the grandchildren will gather in my kitchen and color several dozen eggs.  Almost all of them are getting old enough to color eggs by themselves, so it should be exciting for them.  Afterward, we’ll feast on grilled hot dogs and potato chips, plus what ever desserts the girls bring.

Sunday, if the weather permits, while everyone else is gone to church, Ed and I will hide about 300 plastic eggs all over our yard.   After lunch, young and old, alike, can put their egg hunting skills to the test!  FYI: We NEVER find all of the eggs.  In fact, just the other day, I found an egg from last year–a prize egg, no less–buried in the straw of my flower bed.  Ed is one good egg hider!

That’s about it for this edition of ‘Good Friday’ Fragments.  I’ll be linking them up with Mrs. Fours @ Half-Past Kissin’ Time.

Just for fun, I’m re-posting a montage of some of my favorite Easter moments, but I really need to make a new montage, since this one is getting a bit out-dated.  We’ve added another little one to our family, since it was made, plus the baby at the end of this montage is now 3 1/2 years old!  Like I said, time is flying.

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

T’was The Monday Before Easter…

I’ve been MIA from blog land for a few days…again.  I continue to find it more difficult to blog lately.  It seems like there’s always something else to do, or I don’t feel like writing.

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but it was a chilly weekend where we live!  After several days of  wearing shorts, we had to drag our coats out again 😦  We also had to drag out buckets to cover our squash plants out in the garden.  We woke up to a light dusting of frost on Sunday morning!  Other than being cold, the weekend was sunny and nice.  Both afternoons warmed up enough to require only a long-sleeved shirt.

Ed and I got a nice surprise, on Friday afternoon, when our son, Brad, came by for a surprise visit!  He was working nearby, got off early, and decided to pay us a visit before heading home.  (His wife, Jennifer, was working late.) What a great way to kick off the weekend, and I needed the distraction because I wasn’t feeling my best that day!

I seem to be having more and more days when I’m not feeling my best.  My lowering levels of hormones have caused my rheumatoid arthritis to become active again.  I’m experiencing more fatigue and joint pain/stiffness. I’m moving like a little old lady, these days, especially after sitting for a while! The lower hormone levels are causing me to have mood swings, as well.  At the moment, my moods seem to alternate between mad and sad, with very little glad in between.  (Poor Ed!)  This is not a good way to be!  I’m hoping and praying this will soon pass.

Ed continues to stay as ‘busy as a little beaver’ doing things around the house.  It’s nice to have him around to fix things.  I always have a ‘honey do’ list for him!  He doesn’t like to stay inside, but he’ll tackle any outside projects with a smile.  Today’s project is getting our tomato and pepper plants set out in the garden–before the rain that’s expected this afternoon!  I should mention, we’re throwing caution to the wind by going against the advice of the Farmer’s Almanac and planting today.  We’ll see how it goes.

This is shaping up to be a busy week, leading up to Easter.  There’s a lot to be done between now and then, so I’d better get busy.  Have a great Monday!

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Thursday…

This week began in a wonderful way.  On Monday and Tuesday, the skies were sunny and blue.  The temperatures were warm and pleasant.  In fact, you could almost say it was downright hot, in the afternoons.  I wore shorts both days, and had the air conditioner turned on.

Ed and I took full advantage of the beautiful weather, and spent both days, outside, working around the house.  We painted a few things.  Ed mowed grass, cleaned out the flowerbeds and the rock gardens.  We hoed in the garden, and  we uncovered our fountains.  I decorated the yard for spring and Easter.  We had a grand old time!

Things began to go downhill, on Wednesday.  The weather was still nice, but it became windy, later in the day, as a front began to move in.  By then, I’d gotten a mild case of sunburn, from being outside so much, and the yard work was beginning to take its toll on me.  Ed persisted in working outside, but I spent more time indoors.

Thursday started out with clouds and rain, and eventually turned into “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”, and since you’re probably curious, let me explain.

Thursday was the day I planned to pack up my St. Patrick’s Day decorations and put them away. It was also the day I planned to drag out four large tubs of Easter decorations and decorate the house for Easter.  This is a daunting task, under the best circumstances, but considering the current shape of my storage room, the task was monumental, on Thursday!   It involved literally unpacking one-half of the storage room to find the containers I needed, then dragging five large tubs to the living room, while leaving about a dozen more boxes sitting in the pool room.  Can you picture the way the house looked?  Sort of like moving day.

Strangely enough, our breaker box is located in the storage room–behind all of those stacks of plastic containers.  The only way to reach the breaker box is to move all of those boxes.  Since I had already had about half of the room unpacked, Ed decided he would do some re-wiring in the breaker box.  (We’d thrown a few circuit breakers, throughout the winter, due to overloaded circuits.)  Ed’s re-wiring project involved him turning the lights off and on, and running around the house with this little beeping (meter) thingy.  Are you getting the picture?

About the time I was packing up, and unpacking decorations (and watching a Hallmark movie), and Ed was running around turning lights on and off while beeping, our daughter and granddaughter came over.  She had come to do her income taxes on-line, for the first time, and needed Ed’s guidance.  Her [home schooled] daughter planned to do her schoolwork in the kitchen, while her mom filed their taxes.  Suddenly, we had four different activities going on, at once!  Can you say 4-ring circus?

Two hours later:  Ed only managed to turn the lights out, once, in the room where our granddaughter was doing her schoolwork, thank goodness!  I gave up on the movie and turned it off.  I continued to pack and unpack, however.  Meanwhile, our daughter came down with a booming headache, (and shed a few tears) by the time she finished the tax filing process, then was presented with a $71.00 charge for using Turbo Tax!  (They normally only pay about $50 for their tax man to file taxes for them, but he passed away, last year.)

Four hours later:  Our daughter closed out all of her work on Turbo Tax, and Ed helped her refile, again.  This time their total charge came to $106!  They did some adjusting, and got the total back down to $71, which suddenly seemed like  a bargain, after all!  Meanwhile, I’d taken a brief nap, and had resumed decorating.  Granddaughter, Madison, had finished her schoolwork, and was playing, but she managed to get one of my curling brushes entangled in her long hair, in the process!  Ed had temporarily given up on his electrical project.

Seven hours later: I’ve stopped decorating for the day, and am cooking some taco soup for supper.  Ed has resumed his electrical project, and I’m about ready to shove that little beeping meter where the sun don’t shine! Our SIL came over to say that their pool pump isn’t working, and asked if Ed knows anything about how to fix it.  Meanwhile, our daughter says she got an email from the IRS saying both of her tax forms had been rejected!  OMG!  What next?!

Nine hours later:  Supper’s finished, and the kitchen’s been cleaned up.  Ed’s helped SIL to figure out the problem with the pool pump, but isn’t able to fix it.  By now, it’s now almost 8 o’clock, and Ed’s back in the attic working on that electrical project again!  He has cut a wire, and can’t figure out which place to rewire it to. (Said something about the kitchen outlet only working when he flips the light switch in the living room!)  He’s climbing up and down the attic stairs, with a headlamp on his head, while I’m sitting in the dark in the living room talking to our son on the phone!  Our home has been crazy All.Day.Long.

Ten hours later:  Hallelujah!  Ed has finally made the right wiring connections!  The outlet works as it should.  We have lights again, and Ed can finally put away that annoying beeping thing.  I hope our electrical projects are finished for a long, long time!  It’s only a little after nine, if we hurry, we can catch at least one episode of ‘Breaking Bad’!  All of those plastic storage tubs will just have to wait until tomorrow before they get put back into storage.  Hopefully, tomorrow, our daughter can figure out, with the help of IRS, where they went wrong on the tax forms…

Thank goodness for Fridays!

 

 

 

Friday Fragments From A Frazzled Woman…

Have you ever had one of those weeks where nothing went according to plan?  That’s the kind of week it’s been for me.

My body has been struggling, all week, trying to get adjusted to the recent time change.  As a result, I haven’t been feeling my best.  Then, Monday began with the death of my pet parakeet, ‘Tweety’, and the week quickly went downhill from there.  (Thought: Perhaps ‘Tweety’ didn’t adjust well to the time change either.)

Tuesday morning I heard noise outside, and looked outside to find a dear [male] friend of Ed’s and mine, who lives out-of-town, walking through our yard.  It was 8:30 in the morning, I hadn’t even combed my hair or gotten dressed, and yet I was about to have a morning visitor!  Ha!  He said he was just passing by, and decided to stop by for a few minutes.  He does that every once in a while.

On Wednesday, I’d planned to rake pine straw and work in the yard.  Instead, my daughter called, and I ended up going on a ‘road trip’ with her and granddaughter.  Not what I’d planned, but a heck of a lot more fun than raking pine straw!

Speaking of that ‘road trip’, two strange things happened during it.  First of all, we saw a woman, in the K-mart parking lot selling doughnuts.  The lady was a dead ringer for ‘Mama June’ off of the [now canceled] show “Honey Boo Boo”!  My daughter swears it was ‘Mama June’.  We do live in the same state, so who knows?!  Ha!

The second strange thing that happened on our road trip was when we passed a car with a live Christmas tree tied to its roof!  Really?!  It’s only the first week of November.  I can only imagine how dried out that tree will be by the last week of December! Speaking of the first week of November–what’s up with all of these Christmas movies and commercials already?  When did we start going straight from Halloween to Christmas, without celebrating Thanksgiving first?

As we all know, Tuesday was election day.  Our city keeps moving our voting place, so before every election we have to figure out where to go vote.  This was the third election I’ve voted in (within four years), and I haven’t voted in the same place twice!  We were told our voting place is going to be moved again, following Tuesday’s election.  What in the world?!  

Our weather is absolutely c-r-a-z-y!  One day it’s in the 60’s, two days later, it’s back near 80 degrees, etc.  Back and forth.  Thank goodness for the climate control on the central unit!  I go to bed with the air conditioning blowing, but wake up with the heat on.  Ah, the joys of living in the south!

I can’t believe it, but Ed will be 65, next week.  His birthday is next Thursday, but I’m waiting until next Saturday night to have his birthday celebration.  It’s a shame the government went and moved the ‘full benefit’ social security retirement age to 66.  Had it not been for that, Ed could be having a double celebration!  Instead, he’ll get on medicare, whether he wants to or not, and keep on working for a while longer.

Happy House Anniversary to us!  Seven years ago, today, Ed and I moved into our second house–the house Ed built [next-door to our original house] from the ground up, during weekends and after work. Sometimes I still wonder how he managed to do that!

That’s all I’ve got for today.  I hope to spend the weekend relaxing and continuing to adjust to the new time.  Monday will be here before we know it!

I’m linking my post up @ Half-Past Kissin’ Time.